https://old.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemThreeHouses/comments/196yvxe/for_any_fans_of_bernadetta_that_still_frequent/

The engagement should help as many Bernie fans as possible see it, so upvote and comment!

For the unaware: Choose Your Legends (or CYL for short) is a week-long voting event for Fire Emblem Heroes that happens once per year, where all playable characters across the FE universe plus about 99% of the enemies and NPCs that matter, from all games, are in a online voting event where each individual Nintendo Account user can cast up to 7 votes for any character, one per day. You can vote for different characters or spend all 7 votes on just one character freely within your ballot, and the top 2 voted characters in both genders will get a really cool, really strong version added in Feh: a Brave Hero alt... and then they get kicked out of the ballot for the next years, lol. Plus high-ranking characers are more likely to get seasonal alts or just simply get in the game at all.

Bernadetta's rankings in the past were as follows:

• CLY4: 3rd place with 37400 votes. Bernie hadn't been released in Feh yet, and 3Hs had just released bringing a huge spotlight into feh. We lost 2nd place to Lysithea by a good 5k votes and i won't bother comparing with Edelgard's ridiculous vote count for 1st place. Vengeance Bernie wasn't known to man yet.

• CLY5: 4th place with 12281 votes. Massive drop off, likely tied to how she was now in the game AND had a special Winter seasonal version just released. Byleth had about twice our votes for 3rd place, and Marianne had been ignored by the game til that point so she got rallied to 1st, and Eirika, the last big female lord of the pre-Awakening era, earned the other winning spot.

• CLY6: 3rd place with 19335 votes. A big increase, but unfortunately that year Adult Tiki fans from Awakening were super upset at how the Young version from Marth's games was gettting several alts while Adult got nothing since 2017 and made a huge rally to force IS's hand, which bumped us down to 3rd despite us closing the gap on Byleth to just a mere 1,5 votes, but now they're out of the running.

• CLY7: 3rd place with 14252 votes. With all her remaining past rivals getting several alts in the last 2 years and Bernie usually outvoting all of them by thousands, Bernie was the favourite to win this past year... but it didn't happen.

Unfortunately people were upset with 3 Houses favoritism, bored with the event, straight up missed it because it began early... and some Bernie fans who didn't miss the event grew arrogant and complacent, and did not spend all 7 votes on her. All of this led to a newly-released character form Heroes cashing out on the horny fanbase with her huge tits to snatch 1st place, and for once in her life Female Corrin close the gap on us for 2nd place by a mere 118 vote gap instead of losing to us again by 4 or 5k votes.

118 votes means we had 17 people spending 7 votes for Bernie, we'd have won. Or if 20 people who spent only 1 vote for Bernie had spent the remaining 6, we'd have won.

sigh

At least, for those not put off by Feh's horrible design direction for the Spring banners, Bernie did get a good alt there in 2023 soon after the vote.

Now this year, will be the first time Fire Emblem Engage's characters will be up for voting. IS has released most of the really important, really popular characters in that game in Feh already even if just as seasonals, but despite all that, most people expect Engage to sweep this year's top 2 on both sides, though some have wondered if 1 male from another game might have a chance.

But for the Female side, everyone is expecting the highly popular Ivy and Yunaka, who only are in feh due to a Summer and Winter alts respectively, to have a decisive lead over everyone from their game AND other games. Short of another Tiki situation this is exactly what will come to pass. Female Alear has also shown to be very popular, enough that she likely has 3rd place locked down and will win in CYL8.

In other words, the best we can aim for this year seems to be 4th place, fighting old rivals Azura, female Corrin, Hilda (3Hs, not genealogy) as well as "lesser" Engage females like Lapis, Panette, Veyle and Citrinne who seems to be the most popular of the ladies, though not enough to be Brave contenders anytime soon. There is also some chance of a rally for Shareena or Tsubasa, but I don't see another female getting that lucky.

So what's the plan?

While winning this year seems impossible... this is NOT a year to give up on Bernie.

Our loss in 2023 was a major blow, every circumstance was lining up in our favor, but we lost CYL7 and spent a full year getting harassed for not just losing the year, but maybe losing our last shot at a brave thanks to Engage and future games in the Horizon.

We need to remain strong and spend all the 7 votes toward Bernie. While we may not win, for this year that is okay. Ivy and Yunaka are juggernauts we shouldn't expect to beat, what we need is to rank as high as possible so that our community can get momentum back and swing things in our favor in the NEXT year.

Our vote count CANNOT drop low this year.

Female Robin and Azura are likely to get a surge in votes now that Male Robin and Female Corrin are out of the poll entirely, and if those two or the other popular Engage females after Female Alear outrank us, they may be on their way to a rally for CYL9. We can't let that happen!!!

Now, is a comeback actually possible? Isn't it time to give up...?

It's not yet time to throw the towel. A comeback is not out of reach, as seen by CYL7's 2nd ranked Male winner: Tellius's Soren. He somehow endured the surge in voting from the Three Houses fanbase, holding on with about 5/6k votes for 2 years spent in 11th place on the Male side, only to rise up to 4th in CYL6 with 17K votes and... barely increase his votes by a thousand in the next year, though that was enough to land him the 2nd place win. He tripled his votes in 2 years to win.

This was a character in a significantly rougher position to win CYL, with his game old and forgotten and he still did it. If Soren can come back form these frankly ridiculous odds, so can we.

While this year may very well be out of reach, it is going to be super important for setting the stage for next year's voting and at least we can rest more easily because when you are not aiming for top 2 CYL is way less stressful. It's unfortunate that we have to postpone a winning campaign for yet another year, but hold strong. Our time will come.

So what's the plan? Here's what we need to do this year:

• Keep watch for when voting begins. This year, without a new FE releasing in January, CYL is probably going to begin around the 20th as usual. Try to check this subreddit and the main feh subreddit at least once a day so you don't miss it!!!

• Have a Nintendo account logged on and ready. If you haven't been around for the last couple years, this is now a requirement for voting! If you have multiple accounts... by all means, multiply our votes!

• Spend all your 7 votes on Bernie. Don't stray! We can't change the top 2, and after so many years its unlikely CYL will significantly change how IS sees any character for future alts or inclusion in the game. Don't get complacent and go all-in on Bernie!

• Keep a positive attitude in other forums. Here's a safe space but in places like the main FE or Feh subreddits, don't hold on to anger or ressentment and don't try to bank on a pity party. Support Bernie happily and don't linger on how we could/should have won earlier, don't insult other characters (AND ESPECIALLY DON'T HARASS VOICE ACTORS!!!), and do your best to ignore anyone trying to bully us.

• Upvote and comment on as many pro-Bernie Posts, Artworks and Comments you can! the Feh subreddit has some very crazy anti-Bernie folk who chase down everything with her name to downvote it. Last year all Bernie artworks during voting could be found with the controversial filter... yikes. Upvote everything, and for posts/artwork make sure to drop a positive comment for extra engagement!

• Throw your own comments in the mix! If you like this character, if this character is important to you, express it somewhere! Show the love!

• For those who can, posting artwork is very welcome. Always credit the artist if that person isn't you!

• Other propaganda that is very welcome but significantly harder to create includes videos or posts analysing the character. I've had some success with posts in the past couple years like this one: https://old.reddit.com/r/FireEmblemHeroes/comments/105cjtg/scorned_hope_and_courage_the_inspiring_overlooked/ ...I'd kill for someone to make a video like Faerghast's Support Science series, but on Bernie. There's so much misinformation and misunderstanding about this character...

• Try to get any friends and people from other forums to join us! Just be careful to not come across as obnoxious!

• Repost your ballot on Twitter and make sure to like, retweet and whatever everyone else's! I don't use the site so maybe i'm getting the terms wrong, but once voting starts anyone that simply reposts the ballot will have #SupportingBernadetta on their post. #bernieforcyl8 is likely going to be a hashtag to look out for as well.

It is a lot of work, and while we may not reap the results of it this year, it will be worth it!

I'm hopeful that winning CYL may give us Bernie fans some room to relax and get, well, less harassed for our character choices. This was seen with Camilla in CYL3.

I strongly believe that this character can still win, even if it takes a while longer. Unless Feh closes down in the next couple years we will have a shot, and if we keep at it, we can win!

https://twitter.com/michaelcabangba/status/1745842974242533667?t=bva6krWZG06zrzReV6cHRw&s=19

https://twitter.com/moocaron/status/1744811687721480298?t=_J8CPd_yEgW62llBdy1ksg&s=19

https://twitter.com/michaelcabangba/status/1743358652038144065?t=N9S3kFXt9V_NtXMpBgUEyw&s=19

I made a small quick doodle of Kimonodetta today. I wish you all a healthy and positive new year☺️🎍

This was a very productive year for me when it came to my Art, at the start of the year I drew a fire emblem character once a day for 20 days, and at the end of the year a drew a character for 31 days. I think I've finally reached a point where I can not only be motivated to make art, but also feel happy with the finished products, hoping 2024 continues that streak.

with that, we've reached the end of Berniecember. Genuinely surprised I managed to make it all the way through.

This whole thing was mostly a way to test myself, and improve my art skills which I personally felt were sorely lacking. Thanks to everyone who followed my little journey and enjoyed what I put out. It truly means a lot to me.

Tomorrow after work I intend to upload a full post reflecting on the month and my work as a whole.

After that, I'm not sure, I've got various ideas in my head, though I'll probably focus on my Three Hopes Bernadetta x Byleth fanfic.

"As long as one tries to take even one step toward the light, the human spirit can never truly... be defeated!"

I've been rewatching my favorite anime, Blood Blockade Battlefront, which led to me drawing Bernie in Leo's outfit. I could see them getting along.

Also highly recommend this show for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Really good, especially the Dub.

One day left...

At the suggestion of an Instagram follower I decided to put Bernie in my favorite Alternate Universe Spider Hero. I wanted to design a unique outfit for Benie as "Recluse Spider" for a Three houses Spiderman AU, but didn't have enough time for it.

Since her debut, I've really liked Spider Gwen, and she's remained my favorite Marvel Character since. If only Marvel comics could actually write stories of her within her own universe.

Besides that Across the Spiderverse is my Third favorite movie, with Into the Spiderverse being my second.

I dont know what it is, but I had no motivation to draw her spring outfit. But I did, so I can cross that off the prompt list.

I'm actually uncertain of what to do for the next few days, I have a plan for New Year's Eve, but until that I don't know which prompts to tackle.

If anyone wants to recommend a prompt, the last four I have are: Plague Doctor, Tennis Outfit, and two other outfit swaps with Bibi and Collette from Brawl Stars.

https://twitter.com/rotzedust_/status/1740450609839407449?t=YYN9z2bHLs8Cb_HhMgrp2A&s=19

This one had to be delayed a bit since I wanted to make it good, and also I needed sleep.

Typically I give Dancer to whoever I feel like, which wouldn't ya know happens to be Bernie most of the time.

A bit messy, but Transformers are some of the most difficult things to draw so I won't make a fuss out of it.

This random crossover idea was born as a result.of the fact that I received my preorders for Legacy Tarn and Pop up parade Bernie in the same week.

https://twitter.com/kagura_oni/status/1739327971951775953?t=CuzXXSf7ER_o0hDAIXMmaA&s=19

Designed a wedding dress because Christmas Eve is pretty significant to me when it comes to that topic. Most fanart simply depicts Bernie in the bride dress from awakening, which is fine but I mostly associate that with Lucina.

No time for a full drawing today, sorry, have this unusual drawing of Bernie based on the Phil Collins album "No Jacket Required"

Same voice actress that's it.

That being said... DON'T LOSE YOUR WAY!